I am sure this has come up before, but I couldn't find it (probably my mediocre search skills). Anyhow, I was flying ZRH-BOS this past week when the passenger in front of my fully reclined his/her seat. No worries, I'm not too tall (5'10) but it did cram my knees a bit, so in response, I reclined my seat, not the whole way but I would say about 3/4 of the way.

Behind me was an overweight woman and as I reclined her husband/boyfriend threw me a dirty look and said something, which I didn't hear since I had my headset in. Trying to be a nice guy, I pushed my seat so it was only reclined about 50%, which was still uncomfortable. With two hours left in the flight the boyfriend/husband asks me to push my seat in the upright position, because the lady could not even sit or something. Feeling sad, I obliged, but it was a very long 2 hours!

Did I do anything wrong or was I fully within my rights to recline my seat? Should I have just told the guy that my knees hurt too and that I could do nothing about it?

If it isn't obvious, this has never happened to me before.